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Farmland size and green technology have a significant impact on agricultural carbon emissions. However, more research needs to consider the impact of their interaction on agricultural carbon neutralization. In this paper, the impact of farmland size on the net carbon effect and its underlying mechanisms from the perspective of green agricultural technology adoption were empirically examined using a tracking survey of 2600 farming households. The results show that farmland size expansion at both household and plot levels can increase the net carbon effect of the planting industry, which is more pronounced for grain crops than cash crops. Specifically, a 1% increase in the total area of household farmland or the largest contracted plot area can increase the net carbon effect by more than 3%. Green technology also plays a mediation effect in their relationship. Increasing farmland size can generate sufficient economic incentives to encourage green technology adoption, contributing to carbon sequestration and emissions reduction and increasing the crop's net carbon effect. Furthermore, we find that farmland expansion can significantly encourage the adoption of efficiency-enhancing technologies but not environmentally friendly technologies. Our findings suggest that promoting farmland expansion and green technology extension is effective for the low-carbon transformation of Chinese agriculture. The government should make distinct promotion policies for various green agricultural technologies and differentiating incentives and support policies for different-sized farmers. Our study provides insights into the path to Chinese-style agricultural modernization in the context of a smallholder economy., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

It is essential to identify the dominant flow paths, hot spots and hot periods of hydrological nitrate-nitrogen (NO 3 -N) losses for developing nitrogen loads reduction strategies in agricultural watersheds. Coupled biogeochemical transformations and hydrological connectivity regulate the spatiotemporal dynamics of water and NO 3 -N export along surface and subsurface flows. However, modeling performance is usually limited by the oversimplification of natural and human-managed processes and insufficient representation of spatiotemporally varied hydrological and biogeochemical cycles in agricultural watersheds. In this study, we improved a spatially distributed process-based hydro-ecological model (DLEM-catchment) and applied the model to four tile-drained catchments with mixed agricultural management and diverse landscape in Iowa, Midwestern US. The quantitative statistics show that the improved model well reproduced the daily and monthly water discharge, NO 3 -N concentration and loading measured from 2015 to 2019 in all four catchments. The model estimation shows that subsurface flow (tile flow + lateral flow) dominates the discharge (70-75%) and NO 3 -N loading (77-82%) over the years. However, the contributions of tile drainage and lateral flow vary remarkably among catchments due to different tile-drained area percentages and the presence of farmed potholes (former depressional wetlands that have been drained for agricultural production). Furthermore, we found that agricultural management (e.g. tillage and fertilizer management) and catchment characteristics (e.g. soil properties, farmed potholes, and tile drainage) play important roles in predicting the spatial distributions of NO 3 -N leaching and loading. The simulated results reveal that the model improvements in representing water retention capacity (snow processes, soil roughness, and farmed potholes) and tile drainage improved model performance in estimating discharge and NO 3 -N export at a daily time step, while improvement of agricultural management mainly impacts NO 3 -N export prediction. This study underlines the necessity of characterizing catchment properties, agricultural management practices, flow-specific NO 3 -N movement, and spatial heterogeneity of NO 3 -N fluxes for accurately simulating water quality dynamics and predicting the impacts of agricultural conservation nutrient reduction strategies., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Controlling agricultural carbon emissions contributes to achieving peak carbon emissions and carbon neutrality. However, as a conservation management practice of farmland, the impact of No-tillage management (NTM) on agricultural carbon emissions needs to be further discussed. The main purpose of this paper is to assess the direct effect and spatial spillover effect of NTM on agricultural carbon emissions, revealing the regulating mechanism of NTM on agricultural carbon emissions and the combined application of NTM. Results indicate that NTM reduces agricultural carbon emissions, which is significant in the central and western regions, along with the primary grain, corn, and rice production areas, as well as the northern regions of the Huai River. Furthermore, the spatial spillover analysis reveals that the implementation of NTM increases agricultural carbon emissions in neighboring regions, but financial support and cross-regional services can negatively regulate the relationship between NTM and space agricultural carbon emissions. This paper also finds that combining straw-returning technology and NTM reduces agricultural carbon emissions. Building a cross-regional coordination mechanism, an incentive mechanism, and innovating the conservation tillage model is essential for promoting the NTM and achieving agricultural carbon reduction., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

The purpose of this research was to examine the impact of outgrowers' programs on the food security of smallholder poultry farming households in Osun State. Using multi-stage sampling technique, a structured questionnaire was designed to collect information from beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries of outgrowers' programs in the study area. Descriptive statistics, food security index, and Heckman's selection model were used to analyze the data. The results revealed that outgrowers and non-outgrowers were on the average, 49 and 45 years old, with about 12 and 8 years of experience in poultry farming, respectively. The Poultry Farmers' Association was represented by 97% of outgrowers and 47% of non-outgrowers. There were four major broiler outgrowers' programs existing in the area. The Anchor-Borrower Outgrowers' program and Osun Broiler Outgrowers' program adopted a fixed contract model, whereas, the Dayntee Farm and GS Farm outgrowers' programs employed a semi-fixed contract model. The incidence of food insecurity was 18% for outgrowers and 35% for non-outgrowers, with food insecurity depth and severity being 0.025 and 0.033 for outgrowers and 0.134 and 0.52 for non-outgrowers, respectively. The study found a significant difference in outgrowers' perceptions of food insecurity as well as their coping strategies. The major perceived indicators of food insecurity were inadequate resource endowment (MD = 0.758, p<0.01) and consumption of low-cost food (MD = 0.0658, p<0.01). Food acquisition on credit (WMS = 1.700), meals adjustment (WMS = 1.425), and cooking methods' modification (WMS = 1.875) strategies were adopted to cope with food insecurity. Participation in the outgrowers' program was influenced by membership of Poultry Farmers' Association, credit access and flock sizes and the significant predictors of food security among the poultry farming households were outgrowers' participation, household size, gender, marital status and credit access. It was therefore inferred that outgrowers were considerably more food secure than the non-outgrowers, encouraging the need to scale up the program in the poultry industry. Introduction of flexible regulations and reproductive education would make the program more rewarding to the poultry farming households., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2023 Omodara et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

The study aims to analyse key determinants of urban and peri-urban youth employment in agribusiness in Malawi to support youth policies. A mixed-methods approach is used, which combines both quantitative and qualitative analyses. The quantitative method involved a Bivariate Logit Model and Multinomial Logit Model to analyse nationally representative survey data from the Fourth Integrated Household Survey in 2016-2017. The qualitative method employed thematic analysis to data generated through Focus Group Discussions and Key Informant Interviews for key stakeholders involved in agri-business in Lilongwe district. The qualitative analysis, which focuses on a case study for urban and peri-urban youth in agribusiness, was used to validate, and provide context for the quantitative analysis. The results revealed that a majority of the urban and peri-urban youth engaged in agribusiness across Malawi work in sole farming (family farms or ganyu); in addition, women outnumber men in terms of engagement in agribusiness, and this stems from tradition. In addition, the determinants that affect youth's engagement in agribusiness consist of demographic factors, institutional support, assets, and shocks. It was also shown that men were more likely than women to be engaged in sole farming, but they were as likely as women to be engaged in other forms of agribusiness. The policy recommendation from this study is that programs aimed at supporting youth engagement in agribusiness should consider a variety of factors; If resources are limited, the programs should ensure that they offer capacity strengthening for the youth in the form of extension services and practical training in agribusiness., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2023 Mkandawire et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

While some agricultural landscapes can support wildlife in the short term, it is uncertain how well they can truly sustain wildlife populations. To compare population trends in different production systems, we sampled birds along 48 transects in mature forests, diversified farms, and intensive farms across Costa Rica from 2000 to 2017. To assess how land use influenced population trends in the 349 resident and 80 migratory species with sufficient data, we developed population models. We found, first, that 23% of species were stable in all three land use types, with the rest almost evenly split between increasing and decreasing populations. Second, in forest habitats, a slightly higher fraction was declining: 62% of the 164 species undergoing long-term population changes; nearly half of these declines occurred in forest-affiliated invertivores. Third, in diversified farms, 49% of the 230 species with population changes were declining, with 60% of these declines occurring in agriculture-affiliated species. In contrast, 51% of the species with population changes on diversified farms showed increases, primarily in forest-affiliated invertivores and frugivores. In intensive farms, 153 species showed population changes, also with similar proportions of species increasing (50%) and decreasing (50%). Declines were concentrated in agriculture-affiliated invertivores and forest-affiliated frugivores; increases occurred in many large, omnivorous species. Our findings paint a complex picture but clearly indicate that diversified farming helps sustain populations of diverse, forest-affiliated species. Despite not fully offsetting losses in forest habitats, diversified farming practices help sustain wildlife in a critical time, before possible transformation to nature-positive policies and practices.

Farm tractors have become a key part of daily routine agriculture, converting complex and time-consuming tasks into tasks that are easier to perform and less dependent on human labor, contributing directly to increasing the economic value generated by this activity sector, either by increasing the productivity or by making certain agricultural crops viable, which otherwise would not be sustainable. However, despite all the advantages, accidents with this type of equipment are common, often with critical and sometimes fatal consequences. The evolution of safety requirements of these machines has occurred at a good level; however, a significant part of the agricultural tractors in use are older models that do not have such solutions. Even in the new models, which contain such solutions, these are not always correctly used, and it is even common that they are turned off or simply not used at all. It is therefore natural that accidents continue to occur, a situation that is aggravated by other factors. Lack of situational awareness of the operators, which can result from advanced age, inadequate training, reduced sensitivity/respect for safety rules, or working on irregular terrain like mountainous areas, contribute to high-risk contexts that end in the loss of human life. The consequences of such accidents are clearly aggravated by the time it takes to assist the victims-either because accidents are simply not identified/reported immediately, or by the time it takes to locate and provide help to the victims. This is a scenario that is more common in mountainous regions and regions with low population density. The current paper, using NB-IoT, a set of sensors, and a web application, presents a conceptual toolset conceived to prevent accidents and minimize consequences (human and material) that can be applied to old and new farm tractors. The development was carried out taking the characterization of the farmers and the land in the region in which the authors' research institution is located into account, which has the highest rate of fatal accidents with agricultural tractors in the country; it is a region of mountainous with a very low population density.

Cattle behavior classification technology holds a crucial position within the realm of smart cattle farming. Addressing the requisites of cattle behavior classification in the agricultural sector, this paper presents a novel cattle behavior classification network tailored for intricate environments. This network amalgamates the capabilities of CNN and Bi-LSTM. Initially, a data collection method is devised within an authentic farm setting, followed by the delineation of eight fundamental cattle behaviors. The foundational step involves utilizing VGG16 as the cornerstone of the CNN network, thereby extracting spatial feature vectors from each video data sequence. Subsequently, these features are channeled into a Bi-LSTM classification model, adept at unearthing semantic insights from temporal data in both directions. This process ensures precise recognition and categorization of cattle behaviors. To validate the model's efficacy, ablation experiments, generalization effect assessments, and comparative analyses under consistent experimental conditions are performed. These investigations, involving module replacements within the classification model and comprehensive analysis of ablation experiments, affirm the model's effectiveness. The self-constructed dataset about cattle is subjected to evaluation using cross-entropy loss, assessing the model's generalization efficacy across diverse subjects and viewing perspectives. Classification performance accuracy is quantified through the application of a confusion matrix. Furthermore, a set of comparison experiments is conducted, involving three pertinent deep learning models: MASK-RCNN, CNN-LSTM, and EfficientNet-LSTM. The outcomes of these experiments unequivocally substantiate the superiority of the proposed model. Empirical results underscore the CNN-Bi-LSTM model's commendable performance metrics: achieving 94.3% accuracy, 94.2% precision, and 93.4% recall while navigating challenges such as varying light conditions, occlusions, and environmental influences. The objective of this study is to employ a fusion of CNN and Bi-LSTM to autonomously extract features from multimodal data, thereby addressing the challenge of classifying cattle behaviors within intricate scenes. By surpassing the constraints imposed by conventional methodologies and the analysis of single-sensor data, this approach seeks to enhance the precision and generalizability of cattle behavior classification. The consequential practical, economic, and societal implications for the agricultural sector are of considerable significance.

Since the abolishment of the milk quota system in Europe in 2014 and the introduction of environmental policies such as the phosphate rights system in the Netherlands, the reasons for culling dairy cows might have changed. The aim of this study was to determine the culling reasons for dairy cattle and to identify farmers' culling strategies and their intentions regarding the alteration of indicated culling strategies. To this end, an online questionnaire was distributed among dairy farmers nationally that resulted in 207 responses. Results showed that the most frequent culling reasons were related to problems with reproduction, udder, and hoof health. Primiparous cows were primarily culled for miscellaneous reasons such as injury, reproduction failure, and low milk yield. Multiparous cows were culled predominantly for reproduction failure, udder health and hoof health reasons. Most respondents indicated that they consider formulating a culling strategy, based on certain rules of thumb regarding the most common reasons for culling. Most farmers also reported that culling decisions on their farms were perceived to be unavoidable, though reproductive culling decisions are primarily voluntary. Most respondents stated that they intended to reduce the culling rate for better economic gain did not intend to alter the amount of replacement stock reared. The applied rules of thumb regarding culling strategies do not seem to have changed since the policy changes in dairy farming. The question remains whether farmers' rules of thumb might have made them unaware of the actual economic consequences of their culling strategies under the altered situation., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Background: Early plant diseases and pests identification reduces social, economic, and environmental deficiencies entailing toxic chemical utilization on agricultural farms, thus posing a threat to global food security., Methodology: An enhanced convolutional neural network (CNN) along with long short-term memory (LSTM) using a majority voting ensemble classifier has been proposed to tackle plant pest and disease identification and classification. Within pre-trained models, deep feature extractions have been obtained from connected layers. Deep features have been extracted and are sent to the LSTM layer to build a robust, enhanced LSTM-CNN model for detecting plant pests and diseases. Experiments were carried out using a Turkey dataset, with 4447 apple pests and diseases categorized into 15 different classes., Results: The study was evaluated in different CNNs using logistic regression (LR), LSTM, and extreme learning machine (ELM), focusing on plant disease detection problems. The ensemble majority voting classifier was used at the LSTM layer to detect and classify plant disease labels. Furthermore, an autonomous selection of the optimal LSTM layer network parameters was applied. Finally, the performance was validated based on sensitivity, F 1 score, accuracy, and specificity using LSTM, ELM, and LR classifiers., Conclusion: The presented model attained 99.2% accuracy compared to the cutting-edge models on different classifiers such as LSTM, LR, and ELM, and performed better compared to transfer learning. Pre-trained models, such as VGG19, VGG18, and AlexNet, demonstrated better accuracy when the fc6 layer was compared with other layers. © 2023 Society of Chemical Industry., (© 2023 Society of Chemical Industry.)

Soil solarization is a non-chemical method for eliminating crop-threatening weeds and selectively decontaminating soil. The effect of various soil solarization with black, silver, transparent polythene sheet and straw as mulching on the microbial count and weed growth was studied experimentally. The farm investigation comprised six soil solarization treatments: mulching with black, silver, and transparent polyethylene sheets of 25 μm (μ), organic mulch (soybean Straw), weed-free, and control. All six treatments were repeated in four sets in a Randomized Block Design (RBD) plot size of 5.4 m × 4.8 m. Black, silver, and transparent polythene mulches significantly reduced fungal count compared to non-solarized soil. Straw mulch significantly increased soil fungal count. Solarized treatments had much lower bacterial populations than straw mulch, weed-free, and control treatments. Black, silver, straw mulch, and transparent polythene had 18746, 22763, 23999, and 3048 weeds ha -1 at 45 days after transplanting (DAT). The analysis of dry weed weight demonstrated a significantly low weed dry weight of 0.44 t/ha for black polythene (T 1 ) based soil solarization, representing an 86.66% reduction in dry weed biomass. Soil solarization had the lowest weed index (WI), with black polythene mulch (T 1 ) reducing weed competition. Among various soil solarization treatments, black polythene (T 1 ) showed the highest weed control efficiency of 85.84%, indicating its suitability for use in weed control. The results suggest that soil solarization is effective for soil disinfestation and weed control with polyethene mulch and summer heat in central India., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Marginal Abatement Cost Curves compare and assess greenhouse gas mitigation options available to various sectors of the economy. In the Irish agricultural sector, large anaerobic digestion facilities are currently considered a high-cost abatement solution. In prior studies of anaerobic digestion abatement costs, two options were assessed: the generation of heat and electricity from biogas (115 €/tCO 2eq ) and the production of renewable heat from biomethane (280 €/tCO 2eq ). Both scenarios encompass single cost values that may not capture the potentially variable nature of such systems. In contrast, prior techno-economic analyses and lifecycle analyses can provide a comparison of the abatement costs of anaerobic digestion systems at a range of scales. This work compares two case studies (based on prior literature) for small and medium-scale on farm anaerobic digestion systems. The small-scale system is set in Ireland with cattle slurry collected in open tanks during the winter, while the medium-scale system is set in the USA with cattle slurry collected periodically indoors all year-round. It was found that the abatement cost can vary between -117 to +79 € per t CO2 eq . The key variables that affected the abatement cost were additional revenue streams such as biofertilizer sales, displaced energy savings, and additional incentives and emissions savings within the system boundary. Including only some of these options in the analysis resulted in higher abatement costs being reported. Based on the variation between system topologies and therefore system boundaries, assigning a single mitigation cost to anaerobic digestion systems may not be representative.

Agricultural production outsourcing services (APOS) are an important means to promote green and low-carbon development of agriculture in China. Topography is the key factor limiting the development of APOS. There is little research on the influence relationship between APOS and farmers' chemical fertilizer use from the perspective of topography. Based on the theory of economies of scale, this study empirically evaluated the effect of APOS on chemical fertilizer use and their differences from the perspective of nutrient elements under different topographic conditions by using micro survey data for farmers in China and econometric methods. The results show that APOS can reduce farmers' chemical fertilizer use, and this effect is more obvious for farmers with large farmland sizes and high education levels. Farmland topography directly affects the fertilizer reduction effect of APOS in China. Compared with plain areas, hilly and mountainous areas weaken this effect. To enhance the fertilizer reduction effect of APOS, China should fully consider farmland topography when promoting APOS development. In plain areas, farmland scale management should be further encourage to better utilize APOS as a means of reducing chemical fertilizer use. In hilly and mountainous areas, high-standard farmland construction and small agricultural machinery use can alleviate the constraints of topographical on the scale expansion of APOS. It is necessary to fully consider the differences in farmers' resource endowments and their awareness of purchasing agricultural services in promoting APOS development, especially in regard to the farmers with small farmland sizes and low education levels., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

In the Himalaya, collection of fodder from protected areas by local communities for sustenance of their livestock is an integral part of mountain farming systems. Here, we assess the diversity and utilization patterns of fodder resources collected by local communities from Overa-Aru wildlife sanctuary in Kashmir Himalaya. A multi-stage random sampling was employed to select sample villages (5) and households (81) for the survey. Data were collected through personal interviews of household heads administering an interview schedule and then analyzed using descriptive statistics and linear regression model. The results revealed that 74 fodder species were collected by the local communities from the sanctuary. The diversity and magnitude of fodder resource utilization varied across the study area. The fodder collection and utilization on per day and annual basis ranged from 25 to 90 and 2760 to 13,770 kg/household, respectively. Across the surveyed villages, the fodder was mainly collected by the females (60%). A positive but non-significant relationship was found between the number of persons collecting fodder and quantity of fodder collection/household/day, while a positive and significant relationship was found between the herd size and quantity of fodder collection/household/day. We also found a negative but non-significant relationship between the education status of respondents and the number of livestock holding. Based on our findings, we suggest policy and management interventions such as regulating livestock grazing, promoting plantation of frequently collected fodder species, and better use of agriculture byproducts to guide the sustainable management of fodder resources in this Himalayan protected area, with learning for elsewhere., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.)

Livestock systems contribution to environmental change is controversial. Pasture-based systems are considered a sustainable alternative due to their adaptation to the use of local natural resources. However, they have limited productivity per product unit and, in Europe, depend on public economic support. Furthermore, they are heterogeneous in farm structure and resources use, which may determine their sustainability. We use emergy accounting to assess the sustainability of mountain pasture-based cattle systems and analyse the variability among farms. Emergy accounting assesses the sustainability performance of complex systems (i.e., farming systems) and their interaction with other systems (i.e., the environment and the socio-economic system) focusing on the origin, quality and quantity of the energy required for the system to function. Results show that pasture-based systems largely use local natural renewable resources but depend largely on the wider socio-economic system given their reliance on public economic support and purchased animal feeds. This economic dependence turns out in most farms largely using non-renewable resources. Increasing self-produced feeds and grazing on natural pastures can reduce the dependence on the socio-economic system and improve farm sustainability., (© 2023. Springer Nature Limited.)

Tappeh Sang-e Chakhmaq is the only Neolithic site in Northeastern Iran, characterised by aceramic and ceramic levels corresponding to an occupation of 1500 years from the eighth to the end of the sixth millennium BCE. The Western and Eastern Mounds represent the oldest and longest occupation among the sites identified East of the Zagros, providing a unique context to explore the origin and spread of farming outside the core area of the Eastern Fertile Crescent. We present data about the first harvesting activities in the Northeastern Iranian Central Plateau by applying usewear and microtexture analysis through confocal microscopy on sickle gloss blades. Our results indicate a community of pioneer farmers who settled down in the area carrying with them both domestic cereals as well as advanced techniques of cereal cultivation. We demonstrate that most of the tools were used for harvesting cereals in a fully ripened state collected near the ground, indicating a well-established cereal cultivation strategy. The use of straight shafts with parallel inserts in Tappeh Sang-e Chakhmaq, as known in some sites in the Zagros, suggests the dispersal of farming practices and technologies from the Eastern Fertile Crescent north-eastward across Iran. We observe an evolution in the degree of ripeness of harvested cereals along the first four levels of occupation of the Western Mound, where semi-ripe harvesting is relatively important, suggesting that domestic cereals to be harvested before full maturity were introduced into the village. From the topmost of the Western Mound and along the occupation of the Eastern Mound, ripe harvesting is dominant, showing a well-established cultivation strategy of fully mature cereal. This shift could indicate an in-situ evolution towards a better-established agricultural technology, including harvesting riper crops, that would have resulted in higher yields, as cereals were collected when the grain was fully formed., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2023 Pichon et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

In this article we propose an ecological economics orientation of peri-urban development, looking at land use planning, local food and entropy. Based on a mathematical model, we present an operational concept of minimizing negative externalities within a given population. The model applies control theory. The concept is introduced to facilitate closing cycles, conduct spatial planning and reduce costs to achieve the ecological target of improved entropy. To this end, we look at more soundly defined metropolitan areas. An emphasis is placed on optimally assuring space for urban agriculture and on enabling recycling in ever-growing cities. Our concept is grounded in the use of peri-urban agriculture and regional food provision as an integrated system, which is based on the recycling of organic matter. Firstly, we reference current unhealthy developFfigments and show how cycles were removed as growth occurred. Secondly, as market-oriented city expansions showed limited scope for peri-urban farming, we suggest entering into regional planning. Planning shall ensure a better use of space and can be based on organic matter recycling (composting, slurry, etc.). The article provides a theoretical background for the occurrence of modified land use (systems). These systems shall alleviate some external burdens of large and growing cities. The approach looks at ecological, economic and social aspects in parallel, to outline principles for more sustainable land use, including peri-urban land. Methodologically we offer land use modelling, looking at interactions of industry, residence, and farming. The functions of a city are integrated into a methodical approach of distance from centre to periphery., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2023 Ernst-August Nuppenau. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

Background: Abiotic stressors impair crop yields and growth potential. Despite recent developments, no comprehensive literature review on crop abiotic stress assessment employing deep learning exists. Unlike conventional approaches, deep learning-based computer vision techniques can be employed in farming to offer a non-evasive and practical alternative., Methods: We conducted a systematic review using the revised Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) statement to assemble the articles on the specified topic. We confined our scope to deep learning-related journal articles that focused on classifying crop abiotic stresses. To understand the current state, we evaluated articles published in the preceding ten years, beginning in 2012 and ending on December 18, 2022., Results: After the screening, risk of bias, and certainty assessment using the PRISMA checklist, our systematic search yielded 14 publications. We presented the selected papers through in-depth discussion and analysis, highlighting current trends., Conclusion: Even though research on the domain is scarce, we encountered 11 abiotic stressors across 7 crops. Pre-trained networks dominate the field, yet many architectures remain unexplored. We found several research gaps that future efforts may fill., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2023 Orka et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

Environmental sustainability in agriculture is a key component of discussions to address the current climate crisis; unfortunately, many people (including researchers) presume that only certain types of agriculture (e.g., organic, local) are environmentally sustainable. Non-farmers also fail to acknowledge that many farm practices, including grazing animals, mitigate climate change. Farmers' perceptions about environmental sustainability are important because their livelihoods, and those of future generations, depend on their commitment to sustainable environmental practices. The purpose of this qualitative research was to understand Canadian farmers' perceptions of environmental sustainability, how they are implementing strategies that contribute to sustainable food production, and the challenges they face. Fifty-two farmers, representing 48 farms and over 1000 years of farming experience, participated in comprehensive in-depth interviews. Four farms were in British Columbia; 13 in the Prairies; 26 in Central Canada; and five in Eastern Canada. A wide variety of farm types (e.g., fruit/vegetables, livestock, grains) and sizes (2 to 6500 acres) were included in the study. Farmers' perceptions of environmental sustainability coalesced into four main themes: (1) definitions of sustainability and environmental sustainability, (2) current practices, (3) farming as an identity, and (4) challenges. Many participants explained that they already use sustainable practices and technology, contrary to prevailing opinion that entire food systems need to be transformed to be sustainable. As new agricultural policies and educational curricula are developed, information provided to students, policy makers, and the public must be accurate, balanced, evidence-based, and respectfully consider all perspectives, especially those of farmers., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2023 Carmichael et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

Persistent differences in wealth and power among prehispanic Pueblo societies are visible from the late AD 800s through the late 1200s, after which large portions of the northern US Southwest were depopulated. In this paper we measure these differences in wealth using Gini coefficients based on house size, and show that high Ginis (large wealth differences) are positively related to persistence in settlements and inversely related to an annual measure of the size of the unoccupied dry-farming niche. We argue that wealth inequality in this record is due first to processes inherent in village life which have internally different distributions of the most productive maize fields, exacerbated by the dynamics of systems of balanced reciprocity; and second to decreasing ability to escape village life owing to shrinking availability of unoccupied places within the maize dry-farming niche as villages get enmeshed in regional systems of tribute or taxation. We embed this analytical reconstruction in the model of an 'Abrupt imposition of Malthusian equilibrium in a natural-fertility, agrarian society' proposed by Puleston et al . (Puleston C, Tuljapurkar S, Winterhalder B. 2014 PLoS ONE 9 , e87541 (doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0087541)), but show that the transition to Malthusian dynamics in this area is not abrupt but extends over centuries This article is part of the theme issue 'Evolutionary ecology of inequality'.

Digital Twins serve as virtual counterparts, replicating the characteristics and functionalities of tangible objects, processes, or systems within the digital space, leveraging their capability to simulate and forecast real-world behavior. They have found valuable applications in smart farming, facilitating a comprehensive virtual replica of a farm that encompasses vital aspects such as crop cultivation, soil composition, and prevailing weather conditions. By amalgamating data from diverse sources, including soil, plants condition, environmental sensor networks, meteorological predictions, and high-resolution UAV and Satellite imagery, farmers gain access to dynamic and up-to-date visualization of their agricultural domains empowering them to make well-informed and timely choices concerning critical aspects like efficient irrigation plans, optimal fertilization methods, and effective pest management strategies, enhancing overall farm productivity and sustainability. This research paper aims to present a comprehensive overview of the contemporary state of research on digital twins in smart farming, including crop modelling, precision agriculture, and associated technologies, while exploring their potential applications and their impact on agricultural practices, addressing the challenges and limitations such as data privacy concerns, the need for high-quality data for accurate simulations and predictions, and the complexity of integrating multiple data sources. Lastly, the paper explores the prospects of digital twins in agriculture, highlighting potential avenues for future research and advancement in this domain., Competing Interests: The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Land inequality stalls economic development, entrenches poverty, and is associated with environmental degradation. Yet, rigorous assessments of land-use interventions attend to inequality only rarely. A land inequality lens is especially important to understand how recent large-scale land acquisitions (LSLAs) affect smallholder and indigenous communities across as much as 100 million hectares around the world. This paper studies inequalities in land assets, specifically landholdings and farm size, to derive insights into the distributional outcomes of LSLAs. Using a household survey covering four pairs of land acquisition and control sites in Tanzania, we use a quasi-experimental design to characterize changes in land inequality and subsequent impacts on well-being. We find convincing evidence that LSLAs in Tanzania lead to both reduced landholdings and greater farmland inequality among smallholders. Households in proximity to LSLAs are associated with 21.1% ( P = 0.02) smaller landholdings while evidence, although insignificant, is suggestive that farm sizes are also declining. Aggregate estimates, however, hide that households in the bottom quartiles of farm size suffer the brunt of landlessness and land loss induced by LSLAs that combine to generate greater farmland inequality. Additional analyses find that land inequality is not offset by improvements in other livelihood dimensions, rather farm size decreases among households near LSLAs are associated with no income improvements, lower wealth, increased poverty, and higher food insecurity. The results demonstrate that without explicit consideration of distributional outcomes, land-use policies can systematically reinforce existing inequalities.

Hannah Killeen, BVA policy and public affairs officer, reports on BVA's recent work in relation to the Sustainable Farming Scheme for Wales., (© 2023 British Veterinary Association.)

Reason for Doing the Work: Plant biomass is a commonly used metric to assess agricultural health and productivity. Removing plant material is the most accurate method to estimate plant biomass, but this approach is time consuming, labor intensive, and destructive. Previous attempts to use indirect methods to estimate plant biomass have been limited in breadth and/or have added complexity in data collection and/or modeling. A cost-effective, quick, accurate, and easy to use and understand approach is desirable for use by scientists and growers., Objectives: An indirect method for estimating plant biomass using a drop-plate meter was explored for use in broad array of crop systems., Methods: Drop-plate data collected by more than 20 individuals from 16 crop types on 312 farms across 15 states were used to generate models to estimate plant biomass among and within crop types., Results: A linear model using data from all crop types explained approximately 67% of the variation in plant biomass overall. This model performed differently among crop types and stand heights, which was owed to differences among sample sizes and farming between annual and perennial systems. Comparatively, the model using the combined dataset explained more variance in biomass than models generated with commodity specific data, with the exception of wheat., Conclusions: The drop-plate approach described here was inexpensive, quick, simple, and easy to interpret, and the model generated was robust to error and accurate across multiple crop types. The methods met all expectations for a broad-use approach to estimating plant biomass and are recommended for use across all agroecosystems included in this study. While it may be useful in crops beyond those included, validation is suggested before application., Competing Interests: All authors are employed by the Ecdysis Foundation., (© 2023 Robertson et al.)

Agricultural production systems in semi-arid areas are vulnerable to a myriad of risks. Using a systems approach of risk framework and a mixed-methods research design, this paper sought to explore selected biophysical and socio-economic risks that contributed to vulnerability of agricultural production systems in the semi-arid lowlands of Mwanga District, Kilimanjaro Region, Tanzania. Despite the lack of statistically significant relationships between amounts of rainfall and crop production in the district, 30 focus group participants perceived that spatial and temporal changes of rainfall distribution as coupled with increased crop pest/disease outbreaks and soil loss contributed to vulnerability of agricultural production systems in terms of frequent crop failure and famine particularly amongst farmers who practised rain-fed farming in the semi-arid lowlands. Furthermore, participants perceived that crop production and yields were negatively influenced by poor marketing and institutional structures and that crop production and yields were negatively influenced by farmers' poor access to appropriate technologies including seeds, fertilizers, agrochemicals, agricultural machinery and infrastructure including modern irrigation schemes and all-weather roads. By way of conclusion, reduced vulnerability of agricultural production systems calls for integrated enhancement of farmers' capacity in addressing the biophysical, agro-industrial and institutional risks., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.)

The terms "animal welfare" and "sustainability" have become major keywords in agricultural politics due to increased public concern about our treatment of animals (particularly in the context of food production) and our treatment of the environment, for example regarding our use of natural resources in farming. Agricultural agendas must therefore address both aspects (among others). What is striking is a problematic tendency within the literature of agricultural science and politics to closely link these issues by declaring animal welfare a part of the concept of sustainability. This joining of both concepts is usually defended on one hand by referring to empirical reciprocal influences between the promotion of animal welfare and the development of more sustainable husbandry systems. On the other hand, the linking of both concepts is promoted by its advocates as a promising strategy to protect current animal welfare standards from being rolled back in favour of economic or ecologic human interests. I will argue that the notions of animal welfare and sustainability need to be understood as independent and at times even competing issues. I will closely analyse both notions and illustrate that they are based on different value assumptions and that conceptually joining them means to blur their differences. Such mixing makes it harder to understand the ethical implications entailed in animal welfare and sustainability which will lead to misguided agricultural political decision-making., (Copyright © 2023 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

The sudden and jumping interest rate in the early 1980s triggered a severe economic crisis in the US agriculture sector. To identify the effects of wealth losses on the health condition of cohorts born in the midst of the crisis, this paper constructs an instrumental variable for wealth by exploiting the geographic variation in crop production and the timing of the shock. This study finds that wealth losses generates long-lasting health impacts for these newborns. A one percent wealth loss leads to an approximately 0.008 and 0.003 percentage point increase in the low and very low birth weight rates, respectively. In addition, cohorts growing up in areas of greater impacts have worse self-reported health condition before age 17 than others. They also have more metabolic-syndrome issues and smoke more regularly than other cohorts in adulthood. Lower expenditures on food and prenatal care might explain the negative health effects on cohorts born during the crisis. The study shows that households in areas with greater wealth losses have more declining expenditures on food at home and prenatal-care doctor visits., (© 2023 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

In Germany (and other Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries), the need for a fundamental transformation of livestock farming has become increasingly evident in recent years. Two broad-based stakeholder commissions including the German farmers' association, the meat industry, and Non-Governmental Organizations have endorsed this demand. Nevertheless, major steps towards its implementation are still missing - a circumstance we refer to in this paper as the implementation dilemma. In a globalised economy, farmers cannot solve the problem of low animal welfare standards alone although they are important actors. Moreover, consumer behaviour is changing too slowly, and possibilities for granting more subsidies are limited in the face of multiple economic crises. Against this background, we argue for a stronger focus on voluntary (private) sustainability agreements. We therefore analyse how the German meat supply chain is organised and what responsibility and power the individual actors have to push the sector's transformation. Large slaughterhouses, processors, and the retailing sector seem promising due to their high market concentration and power. Especially retailers can influence the transformation of the market through their role as gatekeepers between suppliers and consumers. Based on business ethics principles of taking responsibility, we consider the focus on sustainability obligations of the retail sector to be ethically justified. However, it is then necessary to give the four retail groups dominating the meat chain in Germany more leeway for sustainability agreements in antitrust law., (Copyright © 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

This research evaluated the effects of long-term (30 years) winter cover crops under conventional farming system and no-tillage system on edaphic fauna in a Rhodic Hapludox soil, from Paraná State, Brazil. We used three winter cover crops (black oat, hairy vetch and fallow), and as a reference a fragment of natural forest. Soil monoliths were collected at two times, one during the flowering of maize (April 2013) and the other during the flowering of soybean (January 2014). The extraction of the monoliths was carried out in three layers in the soil profile (0-10, 10-20 and 20-30 cm). Seventeen taxonomic groups were sampled. The density of the edaphic fauna is inversely related to soil depth. The winter crops associated with the no-tillage system in long-term resulted in fauna densities similar to the natural environment, with a higher density (density increase of 2.2x) at a depth of 10-20 cm in areas with black oat. At 0-10 cm depth, black oat and vetch under no-tillage systems resulted in an increase of 62% and 69% (April 2013) and 46 and 44% (January 2014), respectively, in the density of soil fauna, when compared to the same winter crops in conventional farming system.

Current land use systems in the Amazon largely consist of extensive conventional productivist livestock operations that drive deforestation. Silvopastoral systems (SPS) support a transition to low carbon production if they intensify in sympathy with the needs of biophysical and socio-economic contexts. SPS have been promoted for decades as an alternative livestock production system but widespread uptake has yet to be seen. We provide a schema of associating factors for adoption of SPS based on past literature in tropical agriculture and apply this to a bespoke survey of 172 farms in the Caquetá region of the Colombian Amazon. We find a number of factors which do not apply to this region and argue for a context specific approach. The impact of managing increased market access and opportunities for SPS producers are crucial to avoiding additional deforestation. Further understanding of the underlying antecedents of common factors, such as perceptions of silvopastoral systems, would reduce the risk of perverse policy outcomes., (© 2023. The Author(s).)

Cattle-related injuries are a significant contributing factor in 84.3% of livestock-related incidents in Hokkaido Japan. The specific countermeasures to respond to its characteristics are needed because cattle move freely. This study examined the JA Kyosai mutual aid payment claim form data of the agricultural work-related incidents that occurred from 1st January 2013 to 31st December 2016. We extracted incidents coded 'Cattle' term on the 'Causing Stuffs/Animals' column as cattle-related injuries and analysed them. In four years, there were 227 cattle-related incidents and all were non-fatal cases. The most common age group of victims were in their 60s (37.9%). The Therapy duration was 1 to 243 days, with one day being the most common (10.1%); however, in 51.5% of the cases it required more than 30 days. The most common Activity at the moment of the incident was 'bringing the cattle' (22.5%), of which 'leading the cattle by rope' (56.9% of bringing) was most frequently mentioned. Even farmers with significant experience with cattle cannot control cattle proficiently. Neither can they predict cattle behaviour. Hence, cattle should be kept under protected contact. Since prevention of incidents has limits, harm reduction to farmers must be considered. In the short-term planning, isolated pathways and shock-absorbing lead rope are effective in preventing injuries. However, a more long-term perspective must consider, a fully automated system that reduces human contact with cattle on farms., Competing Interests: No. The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2023 Iwai, Yamamoto. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

Farmers' cooperatives play a critical role in social, economic, and environmental sustainability in terms of poverty reduction, food quality and safety, farm sustainability, and members' well-being. However, they are generally faced with low or declining member commitment, which restricts their performance and sustainable development. This study aims to investigate the effect of cooperative governance on member commitment as well as the moderating effects of cooperative types through an empirical exploratory study applying a random sampling survey. The results indicate that both contractual and relational governance have significant positive effects on member commitment, but vary with cooperative types. Specifically, there is a greater effect of contractual governance in company-affiliated cooperatives than in primary cooperatives, while the effects of relational governance increase in the order of company-affiliated, primary, and company-led cooperatives. Moreover, relational governance displays a greater positive influence on member commitment than contractual governance. These findings suggest that cooperatives should take organizational features, contractual and relational governance into consideration to improve member commitment and sustainable development., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2023 Zeng et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

South Africa has two types of animal farming systems, being the commercial industry and subsistence farming in more rural areas, with commercial farmers having more access to veterinary services. To cater for the absence of sufficient veterinary service, the country allows farmers to access certain over the counter medications (stock remedies), as a way to assist them to farm sustainably and profitably. However, with any drug use, their true benefits are only realized following correct use. The aim of this study was to describe and assess the adequacy of the current use of veterinary drugs by rural-based farmers. A scheduled structured questionnaire with close-ended questions and direct observation was employed. The most important finding was the absence of proper training in the area, with 82.9% not receiving any training related to livestock production or use/handling of stock remedies, highlighting the urgent need for proper training. Of interest, a large proportion of the farmers (57.5%) left the care of their animals to herders. Concerns were also noted in the application of withholding periods, transport of medication, disposal of medication, calculation of drug doses, correct route of administration and carcass disposal with no difference in response between farmers receiving training and those who didn't. These finding not only indicates the importance of farmer training, but shows that for such training to be effective, information should not only cover farming activities but must include primary animal health care and an understanding of information contained in package leaflets. It would also be important to ensure that herdsmen are also included in such training initiatives as they are the primary careers of the animals., (© 2023. The Author(s).)

Unpredictable natural disasters, disease outbreaks, climate change, pollution, and war constantly threaten food crop production. Smart and precision farming encourages using information or data obtained by using advanced technology (sensors, AI, and IoT) to improve decision-making in agriculture and achieve high productivity. For instance, weather prediction, nutrient information, pollutant assessment, and pathogen determination can be made with the help of new analytical and bioanalytical methods, demonstrating the potential for societal impact such as environmental, agricultural, and food science. As a rising technology, biosensors can be a potential tool to promote smart and precision farming in developing and underdeveloped countries. This review emphasizes the role of on-field, in vivo , and wearable biosensors in smart and precision farming, especially those biosensing systems that have proven with suitably complex and analytically challenging samples. The development of various agricultural biosensors in the past five years that fulfill market requirements such as portability, low cost, long-term stability, user-friendliness, rapidity, and on-site monitoring will be reviewed. The challenges and prospects for developing IoT and AI-integrated biosensors to increase crop yield and advance sustainable agriculture will be discussed. Using biosensors in smart and precision farming would ensure food security and revenue for farming communities.

Ammonia (NH 3 ) volatilization, nitrous oxide (N 2 O) emissions, and nitrate (NO 3 ) leaching from agriculture cause severe environmental hazards. Research studies and mitigation strategies have mostly focused on one of these nitrogen (N) losses at a time, often without an integrated view of the agro-food system. Yet, at the regional scale, N - ) leaching from agriculture cause severe environmental hazards. Research studies and mitigation strategies have mostly focused on one of these nitrogen (N) losses at a time, often without an integrated view of the agro-food system. Yet, at the regional scale, N 2 O, NH 3 , and NO 3 - loss patterns reflect the structure of the whole agro-food system. Here, we analyzed at the resolution of NUTS2 administrative European Union (EU) regions, N fluxes through the agro-food systems of a Temperate-Mediterranean gradient (France, Spain, and Portugal) experiencing contrasting climate and soil conditions. We assessed the atmospheric and hydrological N emissions from soils and livestock systems. Expressed per ha agricultural land, NH 3 volatilization varied in the range 6.2-44.4 kg N ha -1 yr -1 , N 2 O emission and NO 3 leaching 0.3-4.9 kg N ha -1 yr -1 and 5.4-154 kg N ha -1 yr -1 respectively. Overall, lowest N 2 volatilization in both temperate and Mediterranean regions roughly follows the distribution of livestock density. We showed that these losses are also closely correlated with the level of fertilization intensity and agriculture system specialization into either stockless crop farming or intensive livestock farming in each region. Moreover, we explored two possible future scenarios at the 2050 horizon: (1) a scenario based on the prescriptions of the EU-Farm-to-Fork (F2F) strategy, with 25% of organic farming, 10% of land set aside for biodiversity, 20% reduction in N fertilizers, and no diet change; and (2) a hypothetical agro-ecological (AE) scenario with generalized organic farming, reconnection of crop and livestock farming, and a healthier human diet with an increase in the share of vegetal protein to 65% (i.e., the Mediterranean diet). Results showed that the AE scenario, owing to its profound reconfiguration of the entire agro-food system would have the potential for much greater reductions in NH 3 - leaching was greater. NH 3 volatilization in both temperate and Mediterranean regions roughly follows the distribution of livestock density. We showed that these losses are also closely correlated with the level of fertilization intensity and agriculture system specialization into either stockless crop farming or intensive livestock farming in each region. Moreover, we explored two possible future scenarios at the 2050 horizon: (1) a scenario based on the prescriptions of the EU-Farm-to-Fork (F2F) strategy, with 25% of organic farming, 10% of land set aside for biodiversity, 20% reduction in N fertilizers, and no diet change; and (2) a hypothetical agro-ecological (AE) scenario with generalized organic farming, reconnection of crop and livestock farming, and a healthier human diet with an increase in the share of vegetal protein to 65% (i.e., the Mediterranean diet). Results showed that the AE scenario, owing to its profound reconfiguration of the entire agro-food system would have the potential for much greater reductions in NH 3 , N 2 O, and NO 3 - emissions, namely, 60-81% reduction, while the F2F scenario would only reach 24-35% reduction of N losses., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

Machinery is commonly used in the modernization of agricultural industries and is a pivotal way to eliminate poverty among farmers. However, there are still disputes regarding the effects of agricultural machinery on farmers' relative poverty. Neither the heterogeneity nor the thresholds in agricultural machinery-led poverty reduction efforts have been discussed in depth. To address those gaps, this study considers farmers' livelihood factors and resource (in)divisibility to investigate how agricultural machinery affects farmers' relative poverty as well as the heterogeneity of and thresholds in that influence. This study collected data from 1118 Chinese farming households. 2SLS-IVTobit regression results show that a 1% increase in the overall level of agricultural machinery leads to a 3.3% increase in farmers' income and a 0.523% decrease in their relative poverty. Furthermore, the three pathways of cost-saving, production efficiency, and labor allocation efficiency are identified as explaining 25.4%, 21.9%, and 21.3% of relative poverty reduction, respectively. The heterogeneity of these effects across different farming stages (i.e., plowing, sowing, and harvesting) is also examined, and the results show that plowing machinery has the largest effect. Then, a threshold analysis is conducted, which shows that farmers are influenced more when the scale of their farms surpasses the threshold of 1.12 hm 2 . Theoretically, this study establishes an integrated model that depicts how agricultural machinery affects farmers' relative poverty through production (in)divisibility. Practically, this study recommends additional investment in agricultural machinery (especially plowing machinery), farmland integration, and taking targeted measures to facilitate resource divisibility., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Recent declines in once-common species are triggering concern that an environmental crisis point has been reached. Yet, the lack of long abundance time series data for most species can make it difficult to attribute these changes to anthropogenic causes, and to separate them from normal cycles. Genetic diversity, on the other hand, is sensitive to past and recent environmental changes, and reflects a measure of a populations' potential to adapt to future stressors. Here, we consider whether patterns of genetic diversity among aquatic insects can be linked to historical and recent patterns of land use change. We collated mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI) variation for >700 aquatic insect species across the United States, where patterns of agricultural expansion and intensification have been documented since the 1800s. We found that genetic diversity was lowest in regions where cropland was historically (pre-1950) most extensive, suggesting a legacy of past environmental harm. Genetic diversity further declined where cropland has since expanded, even after accounting for climate and sampling effects. Notably though, genetic diversity also appeared to rebound where cropland has diminished. Our study suggests that genetic diversity at the community level can be a powerful tool to infer potential population declines and rebounds over longer time spans than is typically possible with ecological data. For the aquatic insects that we considered, patterns of land use many decades ago appear to have left long-lasting damage to genetic diversity that could threaten evolutionary responses to rapid global change., (© 2022 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

Objectives: Agriculture in the United Kingdom (UK) continues to be one of the most dangerous occupations, accounting for around a fifth of fatal workplace injuries and many other injuries, both major and minor. This study examines young farmers' awareness of, attitude to and behaviors around safety practices on-farm., Method: A survey was undertaken amongst a group of young farmers aged 16-years and over who were actively engaged in farming in Northern Ireland, focusing on attitudes and behaviors towards safety on-farm. Drawing on previous literature, this study examined whether younger farmers demonstrate a higher degree of risk tolerance and are more likely to engage in risk taking behavior when undertaking routine farming practices leading to potential injuries and lost working days. The young farmers surveyed were classified into three groups and differences in risk perception were examined., Results: The results indicate that, statistically, farmer age, intensity of farming alongside the level of farming experience contribute to incident occurrence. Our results indicate a need for attitudinal and behavioral change, particularly around risk-taking behaviors that ultimately result in farm incidents, impacting on both the performance of the farm business and individual farmer well-being., Conclusion: Policies aimed at addressing perception and acceptance of risks among farmers are recommended.

The systematic review and meta-analysis study was conducted to describe dairy goat management practices among smallholder farmers in Kenya and Tanzania. The study also evaluated the effects of breed and upgrade level (50%, 75% and > 75%) on growth and lactation performances. Google Scholar was used to search for dairy goats' studies followed by an eligibility check. Eligible studies were assessed for risk of bias using RoB 2.0 (Cochrane risk-of-bias in randomised trial) and ROBINS-I (Risk of Bias Assessment in Non-Randomised Studies of Interventions). Smallholder farmers were mainly stall-feeding natural pasture and crop residues to goats with supplementation limited by the high costs of concentrate feeds. Forage cultivation and conservation were limited by the scarcity of land and improved forage planting materials, low technical know-how and high labour demand. Similarly, farmers had limited access to formal market, veterinary and extension services. Prevalence of infectious diseases, antibiotic resistance and pre-weaning kid mortality were high. Nevertheless, there were breed effects (p < 0.05) on pre-weaning growth and weaning weight but not lactation parameters. However, Saanen goats had relatively higher lactation length (252 days) and yield (637 l) than other goat breeds. Daily milk and lactation yields, pre-weaning growth and growth rate (post-weaning) varied significantly among upgrade levels (p < 0.05) and were highest in > 75% level. It was concluded that Saanen goats and > 75% were the best breed and upgrade level for goat milk production in smallholder farms due to high lactation performance. Improving the different managerial aspects of smallholder dairy goat farming is of paramount importance if the dairy goats' performance, farm income, food safety and security are to be improved in Eastern Africa., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V.)

Tractor overturns are the most prominent contributing factor to death on U.S. farms and have been for decades. While public health researchers hypothesized years ago that overturn fatalities would largely disappear as older tractors were replaced by newer ones, this has not happened. In the meantime, farmers continue to die in these easily preventable and tragic events. Not only are tractor rollover protective structures (ROPS) 99% effective in preventing death in the event of an overturn, a national program exists to connect farmers with ROPS. While this program has been popular with farmers, and the cost-effectiveness of providing farmers with technical support and cost-sharing rebates has been demonstrated, many states lack access to ROPS rebates, even those states with the highest number of overturn fatalities. Given the evidence, it is difficult to reconcile the lack of policy or public investment in a solution that decisively addresses the most pernicious contributor to death in the agricultural industry. In this commentary, we highlight the science behind this proven solution to tractor overturns and the essential role that the media and implementation science can play in encouraging policy-makers to save lives., (© 2023 Wiley Periodicals LLC.)

The 2021 Student Debates of the Entomological Society of America (ESA) were held at the Annual Meeting in Denver, CO. The event was organized by the Student Debates Subcommittee (SDS) of the Student Affairs Committee (SAC). The theme of the 2021 Student Debates was "Transforming Entomology to Adapt to Global Concerns", with 3 topics. Each topic had an unbiased introduction and 2 teams. The debate topics were (i) Nonnative insect introduction is an ethical approach for counteracting proliferation and overpopulation of consumers, (ii) What is the best technology to control undesirable insect pests in urban and agricultural settings? and (iii) Compared to other solutions, like plant-based diets, insect farming is the best method to address rising human global food and nutrient supply demands. Unbiased introduction speakers and teams had approximately 6 months to prepare for their presentations., (© The Author(s) 2023. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Entomological Society of America.)

Objectives: This study was conducted to estimate farm fatality rates and to describe patterns of fatal agricultural injuries on Saskatchewan farms from 2005 to 2019., Methods: Data on work-related farm fatalities was collected from January 2005 to December 2019 in the Province of Saskatchewan as a part of the injury and mortality surveillance for the Canadian Agricultural Injury Reporting (CAIR) program. Data were abstracted from records made available by the Provincial Coroner's Office., Results: There were 166 farm work-related fatalities recorded between 2005 and 2019 in Saskatchewan. The majority (93.4%) of work-related fatalities were in males. The overall work-related fatality rate was 10.5 (95% CI: 8.9-12.1) per 100,000 farm population. The overall age-adjusted work-related fatality rate was 18.1 (95% CI: 15.2-20.9) per 100,000 farm population among males and 1.4 (95% CI: 0.6-2.3) per 100,000 farm population among females. Age-adjusted rate decreased from 91.2 (95% CI: 69.4-117.66) per 100,000 farm population in 2005-2009 to 89.7 (95% CI: 64.9-120.2) per 100,000 farm population in 2015-2019 in males. Trend analysis of the work-related fatality rate in all cases showed a non-significant average annual decline of 2.6% (p = 0.156). Rollover injuries contributed to a high proportion of fatalities in children (30.0%) and the elderly population (14.9%). The most common causative agent was a tractor, and the most common location of injury was the farmyard or field., Conclusion: The burden of mortality in this industry is still substantial. There was a non-significant decreasing trend in the injury rate over the 15-year period. Elderly farmers continue to be at high risk for fatality, while the rates for children have declined. Application of prevention approaches could reduce the risk of fatal injury, and in particular the high proportion of rollover injuries in children and the elderly population.

Given the recognition that climate change predominantly affects the most vulnerable groups, there has been a growing interest in reorientations that can influence family farming's resilience. However, there is still a lack of research relating this subject to sustainable rural development perspectives. We reviewed 23 studies published between 2000 and 2021. These studies were systematically selected according to the pre-established criteria. Even though there is evidence that using adaptation strategies can effectively strengthen climate resilience in rural communities, many limiting factors remain. The convergences for sustainable rural development may include actions with a long-term horizon. These actions include an improvement package for territorial configurations within a local, inclusive, equitable, and participatory perspective. Furthermore, we discuss possible arguments for the results and future directions to explore opportunities in family farming., (© 2023. The Author(s) under exclusive licence to Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.)

World food production must increase in the coming years with minimal environmental impact for food and nutrition security. Circular Agriculture has emerged as an approach to minimize non-renewable resource depletion and encourage by-product reuse. The goal of this study was to evaluate Circular Agriculture as a tool to increase food production and N recovery. The assessment was conducted for two Brazilian farms (Farm 1; Farm 2) with Oxisols under no-till and a diversified cropping system, including five species of grain, three cover crop species, and sweet potato. Both farms implemented an annual two-crop rotation and an integrated crop-livestock system with beef cattle confined for 2-years. Grain and forage from the fields, leftovers from silos, and crop residues were used as cattle feed. Grain yield was 4.8 and 4.5 t ha -1 for soybean, 12.5 and 12.1 t ha -1 for maize, and 2.6 and 2.4 t ha -1 for common bean, for Farm 1 and Farm 2, respectively, which is higher than the national average. The animals gained 1.2 kg day -1 of live weight. Farm 1 exported 246 kg ha -1  year -1 of N in grains, tubers, and animals, while 216 kg ha -1  year -1 was added as fertilizer and N to cattle. Farm 2 exported 224 kg ha -1  year -1 in grain and animals, while 215 kg ha -1  year -1 was added as fertilizer and N to cattle. Circular practices, i.e., no-till, crop rotation, year-round soil covered, maize intercropped with brachiaria ruziziensis, biological N fixation, and crop-livestock integration, increased crop yield and decreased N application by 14.7 % (Farm 1) and 4.3 % (Farm 2). 85 % of the N consumed by the confined animals was excreted and converted into organic compost. Overall, circular practices associated with adequate crop management allowed recovering high rate of applied N, reducing environmental impacts, and increasing food production with lower production costs., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest On behalf of all authors of the submission, we declare that we have no personal relationships with other people or organizations that could inappropriately influence (bias) our work., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Increasing globalization intensifies land redistribution via global supply chains. Interregional trade not only transfers embodied land but also displaces the negative environmental impact of land degradation from one region to another. This study sheds light on land degradation transfer by focusing on salinization directly whereas previous studies have extensively assessed the land resource embodied in trade. To analyze the relationships among economies under interwoven embodied flows, this study integrates complex network analysis and input-output method to observe the endogenous structure of the transfer system. By focusing on irrigated land with higher crop yields than dryland farming, we make policy recommendations on food safety and proper irrigation. The results of the quantitative analysis show that the total amount of saline and sodic irrigated land embodied in global final demand are 260978.23 and 424291.05 square kilometers respectively. Salt-affected area of irrigated land is imported by not only developed countries but also large developing countries such as Mainland China and India. Exports of embodied salt-affected land in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Turkmenistan are pressing issues, accounting for nearly 60% of total exports from net exporters worldwide. It is also demonstrated that embodied transfer network has a basic community structure of three groups due to regional preference in agricultural products trade., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Ji et al. introduce vertical farming, a production-scale crop-growth system within an enclosed structure that maximizes space-use efficiency by growing plants vertically and precisely controls the plant environment., Competing Interests: Declaration of interests The authors declare no competing interests., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Livelihood diversification is an essential strategy for managing economic and environmental shocks and reducing rural poverty in developing countries. This article presents a comprehensive two-part literature review on livelihood capital and livelihood diversification strategies. Firstly, it identifies the role of livelihood capital in determining livelihood diversification strategies, and secondly, it assesses the role of livelihood diversification strategies in reducing rural poverty in developing countries. Evidence suggests that human, natural, and financial capitals are the primary determining assets of livelihood diversification strategies. However, the role of social and physical capital with livelihood diversification has not widely been studied. Education, farming experience, family size, land holding size, access to formal credit, access to market, and membership in village organizations were the major influencing factors in the adoption process of livelihood diversification strategies. The contribution of livelihood diversification in poverty reduction (SDG-1) was realized through improved food security and nutrition, increased income level, sustainability of crop production, and mitigating climatic vulnerabilities. This study suggests enhanced livelihood diversification through improved access to and availability of livelihood assets is vital in reducing rural poverty in developing countries., (© 2023. The Author(s).)

The rapid transition of livestock husbandry in the 20th century involved a broad adoption of slurry-based livestock housing systems that resulted in farm economic benefits, but also in societal debate related to the environment and animal welfare. In this article, we apply the method of topic modeling to four major German newspapers to identify thematic emphases and changes in coverage around "slurry". We considered more than 2300 articles published between 1971 and 2020. Our results show that reporting encompasses economic, environmental, and social topics in which slurry is represented mostly critically ("poisonous substance"), occasionally neutrally ("scent of countryside"), or rarely positively ("input for the bioeconomy"). Three meta-themes overarch the majority of issues and reflect public discourse on agriculture: (i) the dichotomy of agricultural industrialization and family farming; (ii) contrasting actualities of factory farming and animal welfare; and (iii) the responsibility of policy for the emergence, existence and solution of livestock and slurry-related problems. A more balanced recognition of mutual values and constraints by the media could contribute to a discursive reconciliation of public and private interests., (© 2023. The Author(s).)

The protection of farmland resources is related to world food security, as well as the smooth realization of the goals of UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and China's Rural Revitalization Plan. As the most active region in the global economic development and one of the main grain producing areas, the problem of farmland abandonment in the Yangtze River Delta gradually appears with the rapid development of urbanization. Therefore, based on the interpretation data of remote sensing images and field survey data of three periods in 2000, 2010, and 2018, this study used Moran's I and geographical barycenter model to reveal the spatiotemporal evolution law of farmland abandonment in Pingyang County of the Yangtze River Delta. And then, this study selected 10 indicators covering four categories: geography, proximity, distance, and policy, and used random forest model to reveal the main influencing factors of farmland abandonment in the study area. The results showed that the abandoned farmland increased from 441.58 hm 2 in 2000 to 5797.40 hm 2 in 2018. The hot spot and barycenter of land abandonment gradually shifted from the western mountainous areas to the eastern plain areas. Altitude and slope were the main factors affecting the farmland abandonment. The high the altitude and the great the slope, the farmland abandonment in mountainous areas were serious. The proximity factors had a greater impact on the expansion of farmland abandonment from 2000 to 2010, and then the impact weakened. In view of the above analysis, the countermeasures and suggestions for maintaining food security were finally put forward., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)